WASHINGTON, D.C. Nov. 6 (DPI) – Editorials appearing on The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times sites today blame US factors – but utterly distinct factors – in the highway shooting deaths in northern Mexico of nine women and children, at the hands apparently of a vicious drug cartel.

The Wall Street Journal, in a staff editorial, blamed US consumers of illicit drugs for abetting the growing power of the Mexican-based drug cartels. Such cartels, particularly the Sinoloa Cartel, are rivaling Mexican law enforcement and thus the sovereignty of Mexico, where 36,000 people a year are murdered.

By contrast, The New York Times published an op-ed by author Ioan Grillo, who declared that the US gun culture – widespread gun availability and manufacturing – was largely responsible for the use of automatic weapons by criminal gangs in Mexico. Grillo conceded that the Mexico drug-problem is “complex” but wrote “it is so much more difficult for the Mexican security forces to get the edge over gangsters who blow through their vehicles with .50-calibers and have an unlimited supply of rifles.”

Grillo’s column did not include a comment section – which is often the case with any column that’s hard to defend under broad intellectual scrutiny, in the NYT and elsewhere.

In any case, the disparate US viewpoints highlight, yet again, the peculiar divide among Americans in their perceptions of the source of problems, now including problems extending beyond our borders.

The WSJ.com site, which is beginning to cut back on comment sections on many of its news articles and features, continues to include them for editorials. And many readers took offense on the view that the US drug consumers help strengthen drug cartels.

Some of the most popular comments linked to their editorial on the Mexico killings:

The editorial board has been telling us for three years we need more people from south of the border to remain productive. Now they say its a failed state they think we might have to invade to restore order.  And in case you missed it, its all the American taxpayers fault!
The editorial board is not on our side.  

Big pharma was blamed for the opiate crisis; but US citizens get the blame for cartel violence.

Mexico is a narco state. So much money comes from the drug industry, that I don’t  believe the Mexican government even wants to disrupt it. 
The politicians, police, and drug lords are all in bed together. We’ve got a real problem brewing down there. We spend all this blood and treasure in the desert on the other side of the planet while we have terrorists right next door to us on our border, pumping drugs and death into our country every minute of every day. 
Maybe it’s time to focus on our own backyard.